New Delhi: Aadhaar, which captures an individual's personal details along with biometrics like fingerprint and iris, has been mandated to be used for authentication of identity with banks and telecom companies, among others.
But not many know or perhaps use a feature called the biometric lock that allows a user to seal or lock their biometric information.
The Aadhaar-issuing authority UIDAI had set in place a 'biometric lock' as an additional layer of protection against outside intrusions or breach.
The biometric lock in existing Aadhaar system is aimed at allowing users to safeguard or lock down their biometrics as and when they want.
Here is how you can use the privacy feature to seal or lock your biometric information
UIDAI believes that the idea behind the facility was to "rule out" possibility of anyone even attempting to misuse biometric information.
The Aadhaar-issuing authority expects the existing biometric lock feature along with new virtual ID facility being rolled out in coming months to address various security and privacy concerns.
The UIDAI, last week, announced the biggest overhaul of the system by allowing Aadhaar owners to create and use a virtual ID to avoid sharing their unique identity numbers, when using government and other services.
Under the new system, at the user-end, the Aadhaar holder will have the choice not to share their Aadhaar number at the time of authentication. Instead, a random 16-digit Virtual ID number would be generated and could be used in lieu of Aadhaar with the authorised agency like banks and telecom service providers.
VID will be a temporary, revocable 16-digit random number mapped with the Aadhaar number. It will not be possible to derive Aadhaar number from VID.
With Agency Inputs
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